Narcissism and the potential for selftransformation in the Twelve Steps

Bibliographic Data

ID7787772
AuthorsLiz Turnbull (UNSW Sydney, corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume1
Issue2
Pages149-165
Publication date1997-04-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueHealth An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health Illness and Medicine (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1363-4593 • E-ISSN: 1461-7196
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/136345939700100202
OpenAlexW2124816913
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited7

Alcoholism and its legacies of dis-ease can be understood psychoanalytically in terms of disturbed or pathological narcissism. The Twelve Steps programme of recovery provides the fragile self with the conditions for a ritualized rebirth through offering a community based on relations of reciprocity and a spiritual relationship to the Other. The holding environment of the group and the paradox at the heart of the relation to the Other are potent therapeutic elements. The Twelve Steps is an innovatory ethical practice of self-care drawing on a varied lineage of traditional philosophies and religions. In a philosophical anthropology, this innovation is an antidote to the estrangement and nihilism experienced by many in contemporary life. The interdisciplinary analysis uses the experience of participation in the Twelve Steps and examines the first three of the Twelve Steps as a way of exploring the connections between ethics, well-being and the social conditions of self-transformation

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Narcissism · Nihilism · Philosophical anthropology · Psychoanalysis · Self · Social science · Sociology · Philosophy · Psychology · Religion, Spirituality, and Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices · Theological Perspectives and Practices

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